(AP) Gunman kills himself, 1 other at Reno hospital
By SCOTT SONNER
Associated Press
RENO, Nev.
A suicidal gunman opened fire at a Reno hospital campus Tuesday, killing one person, wounding two others and sending police on a door-to-door search within the facility amid the chaos.
The Nevada Department of Public Safety said the wounded victims were in surgery and one of them is a doctor. The gunman killed himself after the shooting.
Reno Deputy Police Chief Tom Robinson didn’t say how many shots were fired or what type of weapon was used, and didn’t release the identities of the male shooter or the dead and injured. He said, however, that investigators were confident no one else was involved.
Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Gail Powell said the wounded doctor is a woman but she had no more information about the shooting that happened at the Center for Advanced Medicine.
Robinson said there were about 100 people in the building when the shooting was reported at 2:05 p.m. Officers entered three to five minutes later and did “a systematic search, floor to floor, room to room,” Robinson said.
Renown Regional Medical Center was put on lockdown amid the chaos of the shooting as law enforcement rushed to the scene and victims were treated by doctors on the hospital campus. More than three dozen police cars, including SWAT team vehicles, surrounded the sprawling medical complex and closed off a three-block area near downtown Reno.
State Sen. Debbie Smith said she was at Renown for an appointment and was trying to leave a nearby building when the shooting occurred.
Renown Regional Medical Center posted a notice on its website less than two hours after the shooting saying that operations had returned to normal at the main hospital but police were still investigating the shooting. About two dozen witnesses were taken to police headquarters for interviews.
At least one person was transported by ambulance from the building where the shooting happened to the Renown hospital’s emergency room, less than a block away, said Scott Walquist, a spokesman for the Regional Emergency Medical Services Authority.
The Center for Advanced Medicine building is a modern structure connected by a second-floor walkway to the hospital and a parking structure.
Police initially said the gunman shot four people before killing himself, but they later said he wounded two people and killed another before committing suicide.
Gov. Brian Sandoval said on Twitter that he and his staff were monitoring the situation and his thoughts and prayers were with those affected by the tragedy.
Renown Regional Medical Center is the largest hospital in northern Nevada. It has played an important role in responding to several recent tragedies in northern Nevada, including a crash at a Reno air race in 2011 that killed 11 people and a rampage at a Carson City restaurant the same year that killed three uniformed Nevada National Guard members.
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Associated Press writers Sandra Chereb in Carson City and Ken Ritter in Las Vegas contributed to this report.